What can I say, it's a history book, about a period that would be much better covered by photography, film, a Woody Guthrie song or perhaps good historical fiction. The story as told here drags a little and despite the author's best effort never really gets us into the heads of the people who lived through this. In fact, I can summerize it pretty quickly. Encouraged by government programs, settlers of the "Dust Bowl" region of the country plowed up the only plant that would grow there (buffalo grass), and tried to farm an area with historically too little rainfall to support crops. A couple of years of good rainfall plus crop price inflation caused by war resulted in millions of square miles stripped of its protective grass. When the rain and wheat prices went back to their norms, the unprotected land was swept up in enormous dust storms and misery and death resulted for the few stubborn folks who refused to move somewhere else. Government programs to alleviate the ecological disaster were well meaning but ineffective. Today, deep water wells allow some modest crop growth, although they are rapidly depleting the aquifer. The nation is left with farm subsidies that were originally meant to allow poor people to keep their land, but now subsidize large corporate farms.